


A Flash of Silver in the Black

by Beleriandings



Series: In the midst of the innumerable stars [8]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Fall of Gondolin, Family, Gen, Space Gondolin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4222314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Idril knows something is coming for Gondolin. She just doesn't know what, but she's determined to survive, along with her family and as many of the inhabitants of their planet as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flash of Silver in the Black

“What is it?” said Idril, laughing. She extended her hands before her, making to playfully tug the blindfold from her eyes, even as Tuor stopped her, taking her by the arm and guiding her. “What is this surprise of yours, hmm? Why all the secrecy?”

She could feel the rumble of his laughter in his chest. “Think of it as another late wedding present.”

She laughed too, and was about to say more, when Tuor let go of her arm. “Here we are.”

She heard the sound of one of the great rolling automatic doors of the ship hangar. “Tuor, what - ”

But then he was removing her blindfold, and gesturing at the ship that stood before them with a triumphant grin. “Ta-da! For you." 

She gaped. Before then stood a little jump take-off planethopper of the kind used in the outer ring, but it was sleek and new and painted in brightest silver. It stood out from the others around it, clunky, ugly things with their bulky engines and their hulls blasted to dullness by many atmospheric re-entries. She walked around it, marvelling at the engineering. She peered at the engines and the holoconsole she could just glimpse through the shield if she stood on tiptoe. Idril knew relatively little about ships themselves - though she was a somewhat skilled pilot - but she knew this was the top of the range.

But for all the ship looked brand-new, she thought there was something she recognised about it.

"Tuor, is this…”

He blushed slightly. “The ship I crashed on the launchpad, yes, when I came here. Should have known you’d recognise her. The  _Swan_  she was called back then, just that. Beat-up old thing of mine that Voronwë and I travelled all the way from the outer rings in, but I’ve had her completely refitted for us. For you, really. I wanted you to have her.” He grinned. “Look!”

She looked where he was pointing only to smile. “The  _Silver Swan_ ” she said, reading the letters inscribed on the hull. Idril laid her hand on the smooth silver shielding of the ship, marvelling at the compact engines, the bright reflective shine, the sleek shape.

“Do you like her?”

“ _Like_  her? I love her Tuor! Thank you!” She sighed. “You know I haven’t done any  _real_  flying in centuries, right?”

“You’re still probably a better pilot than I am, the way your father and everyone who knew you back then tell it.” He grinned. “Besides, they say you never forgot. Flying off-world can get in your bloodstream, and all that.”

She felt a smile tug at her own lips, excitement lighting in her heart despite herself as she thought back to her aunt Aredhel teaching her to fly, soaring high into the atmosphere and then out, gazing down on the little blue and white ball that was the watery planet of Nevrast in childish wonder. “Well I guess that’s true enough.”

“I’ve had the flight gauntlets set up to recognise your fingerprints. The  _Silver Swan_ ’s yours, more than she is mine. When your father raises the lockdown on the city Gates, then I thought we could go flying around the Echoriath rings. And maybe…” he placed his hand on the round swell of her growing belly, “maybe we can teach our child to fly too.”

Idril smiled with genuine warmth and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You know, you always have this way of putting your finger on exactly what I want most, before I know I want it, don’t you?”

He grinned, kissing the corner of her mouth softly. “Well, I try.”

——-

Their son played on the garden deck of the palace, and, Idril thought as she sat there beside Tuor on the neatly clipped grass listening to Eärendil’s laughter, she could barely remember a time when she had been happier.

She leaned back, luxuriating in the warm, spectrally filtered light falling on her face, the slight hum of the generators far below the balcony that was the comforting heartbeat of the little artificially engineered planet. She looked up, catching sight of the Wall, arcing high above where on other planets the sky would be.

The Wall was beautiful, Idril realised with some surprise. She stared up at the shimmering membrane high above, catching the light of Anar and turning it to a pale, iridescent greenish haze. She did not often notice it these days, having lived beneath and within it for so long, though, she knew, that fragile-looking membranous dome meant their lives here on the surface. It was her father’s pride and joy, a miracle of Noldorin engineering; it kept the little planet Gondolin’s atmosphere from dissipating into space, it acted as a radiation shield, and the solar nano-cells embedded in its surface kept the city’s power on, whilst still letting through an optimal spectral range for the growing of crops.

 _Tough and resilient too_ , she knew,  _delicate and ethereal though it appeared_.

“So a bit like you then” said Tuor, breaking into her thoughts.

Idril blushed; she had not realised she had spoken aloud. She grinned. “Why, you insult me. I’d like to think I have a higher tensile strength than that.” She elbowed him playfully. “Emotionally speaking at least.”

“And you not even made of carbon nanotubes.”

“It’s graphene-polymer composite actually.”

He rolled his eyes and gave a small bow, made clumsy by the fact that he was sitting down. “My mistake, oh princess.”

They sat and stared up at the Wall once more, in contemplative silence.

“Still” said Idril, frowning slightly. “It  _can_  be broken. Subject it to enough force, and you could punch through.”

He raised an eyebrow. “The Eagle fleet patrols the Echoriath rings. Any stray asteroids that end up on a collision course, they’ll take care of them, like they always have.”

“I’m not worried about the asteroids.”

He was frowning once more, and cupped her cheek in his hand, turning her face so that she was looking into his eyes. “What  _are_  you worried about?”

She thought about this for a while before she answered. “I don’t quite know.” She admitted at last. She fidgeted with the ring on her finger. “But… when you came here, what you said to my father…”

“Yes” said Tuor heavily. “The warning from Ulmo.”

“Yes, that. I can’t help feeling… something’s coming, Tuor. I know it.”

He nodded slowly. “I think so too.”

They were silent for a little while longer, before Tuor spoke again. “What are you planning to do?”

It was Idril’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Who says I’m planning to do anything?”

He gave a small smile. “I can tell.”

“ _How_  can you tell?”

“You’ve got that look you get when you’re trying to  _fix_  something.”

She smiled too. “Oh, alright. I was just thinking… you know how we have seven Gates?”

Tuor looked up at the Wall overhead, where one of the Gates was visible, joined to the ground by its thick cable. “Yes. One at the North pole, three spaced over each thirty degree latitude ring.”

“You ever wonder why there isn’t one at the  _South_  Pole?”

He blinked. “I thought it wasn’t necessary. The cable’s just a cable, to keep the tension right, isn’t it? It doesn’t lead to anything. There’s no platform there, no docking port. No Gate.”

Idril grinned. “That’s where you’re wrong. There  _is_  a Gate up there; it was an extra, more of a goods port really. It was used when the city was being built, for materials and such. When the planet was ready for habitation it fell out of use, and then after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, when father ordered the lockdown, it was sealed up completely.”

“But… the platform’s still there, on the outside?”

She nodded. “They couldn’t exactly take it down; it’s part of the structure. So they just left it there, unguarded.”

“So, what’s your point?”

“My  _point_ ” she said, “is that there are a hundred-odd abandoned docking bays for ships up there, with no one guarding them. Not even Maeglin’s people use that thing, when they go out asteroid mining. If we ever need a get-out launchpad from the city…” she faltered, drawing in a breath. “If… something happens, and we’re suddenly in need of a hundred ships to launch immediately off-planet…”

“…Then that would be a good place to keep them, and to launch from.”

She nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

“So… we need to find a hundred ships?”

She nodded, thinking, tapping her finger against her lips. “Or as many as possible. It’s certainly not going to be easy. But I think a fleet of half scrap metal - except the  _Silver Swan_  of course - wouldn’t be so bad in a pinch, don’t you?”

——–

She had known it was coming.

She had not known it would be like  _this_. No knowing could have prepared her.

The structure of the Wall was collapsing, Idril saw with horror as they mounted the docking platform, clumsy in their suits, hauling heavy canisters of compressed oxygen for their stores. There were great gaping holes, gushing thick black smoke, in what had once been a smooth, shimmering expanse broken only by the Gates. She watched the people hurrying around them, rushing and stumbling to the ships as she held Eärendil close, momentarily frozen. She could see some people carrying bundles, their most treasured possessions, but more carrying the wounded, the dying. There were horrific burns, she saw, faces ashen or raw red peering through glass visors, or screaming in pain. “Don’t look, little one” she said, clasping her son firmly to her body, enfolding him in her arms.

After a while, the numbers emerging on the launch platform from below began to thin to a trickle, the survivors gradually boarding the ships. The sight did not reassure her as much as it should have. They had never found nearly a hundred ships for their fleet - there were perhaps forty refitted old miners and rangers on the launchpad - and not even those were all full and piloted.

 _So few. And my father is still down there_ , she thought, trying to crane her neck to scan the chaotic throng, apprehensive.  _So is Tuor_.

But even as the thought came to her, Tuor appeared at the entrance hatch, his suit covered in black blood and red and a layer of clinging soot, his face grim behind the hardened glass. Her heart swooped in relief. “Tuor! Over here!”

He came towards her, clasping her gloved hand tightly. “That's…that seems to all that… made it.”

Her eyes widened for a moment, and then she frowned, pressing her lips together decisively. “Eärendil, I want you to go with your father” she said, pushing her son gently into Tuor’s arms. She drew her laser blaster from her thigh holster. “I’m going to find  _my_  father.”

“Idril, no” said Tuor, his face sorrowful. He placed a gentle hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”

She opened her mouth, momentarily lost for words. “ _No_ ” she said at last. “No, I don’t believe that. He can’t be. He’s got to be alive.”

Tuor hesitated. “No, Idril… he said… he said to leave, to get ourselves and Eärendil… the people… to get them to safety. He said there was nothing left for him out there…”

But Idril was no longer listening. “Then he’s alive? Tell me where he is!”

“I can’t. I promised I would - ”

“ _Tell me_ , Tuor.” She could feel tears burning in her eyes, as she gazed down through the great spreading, burning hole, picking out the once gleaming city far below, on the planet’s surface. She could just pick out the king’s tower, its plate glass and steel glinting like a flame itself in the reflected light of the burning. She seized Tuor’s arm desperately. “Tell me. Please. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s so stubborn, but he can  _live_ , he  _must_  live, I can’t lose him too, please, please…  _you must tell me!_ ”

He sighed, taking her hand in his and looking into her face for a moment. “He chose this. He asked me to keep you safe. You have to survive… you can’t go back down there.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Idril…”

“ _Tell me where my father is!_ ”

Tuor’s shoulders slumped. “He’s in his tower. He climbed to the top. But you mustn’t - Idril!”

He caught her wrist as she turned away. She sighed, leaning down to hastily brush her visor against Eärendil’s, since she couldn’t kiss his cheek. Then she stood and raised her blaster, grimly. She was just about to stride off to the cable port down to the surface, when there came a resounding, thunderous explosion, shaking the platform upon which they stood, knocking them all to the ground. Shaken, Idril got to her feet, staring down, letting out a cry of horror as the blaster fell from her fingers.

The surface was aflame, a roaring inferno engulfing the king’s tower completely even as larger sections of the Wall began to collapse, the flames burning hungrily over the whole surface as the top of the tower swayed and toppled with a crash she felt even from high above.

For a moment she was frozen, standing motionless, as the world spun around her.

_Dead. He’s dead. There’s no way anyone could have survived that._

_No, father, not you too. You can’t. Come back, I’m not ready, I don’t know how to lead them. I can’t do this without you._

Then Tuor was there, holding her in his arms, swaying backwards and forwards as she screamed silently, her sobs stopping in her throat. At first she struggled against him, but then she felt a great weakness overcome her, letting herself go limp in his arms.

“Mother” said Eärendil, coming to wrap his arms around her leg, pressing his face to her stomach. “Mother, what’s wrong?”

She placed her hand on his helmet and wished she could run her fingers through her son’s golden hair, take comfort from the softness of it as hot tears of grief and shock ran down her face.  _Everything_ , she almost said.  _Everything has gone wrong, there’s no hope anymore_.

“Nothing, sweet one” she said instead. She had to survive, if only for Eärendil and Tuor, she knew. She drew herself up in Tuor’s arms, holding Eärendil close as they watched the fires rage below. “We have to go” she said, her voice hard as steel. “We have to get to the ships.”

Tuor nodded, sadly. “Come on. The fleet is waiting for our signal.”

——

They scrambled aboard the  _Silver Swan_ , Tuor and Idril each holding one of Eärendil’s hands. She wished once more that she could cover her son’s eyes, but there was no time, she knew. She sprang to the controls, tugging off her bulky helmet and suit, pulling up the display screens as the console whirred and shimmered into life. She slammed the intercom button to go through to the escape fleet. “All pilots in position. Launch at will, and we’ll form up and radio for rescue once we get out past the Echoriath C-ring. The Eagles should have caught us on radar by then anyway.”  _Should have_. “Let’s go!”

“Aye, lady Idril.”

“As you say, princess.”

“May the One protect you and your little boy, captain.”

 _Captain. They were calling her captain now_. They were none of them really pilots, she knew, they were all just people who had survived by chance, those who weren’t injured and had maybe a little knowledge of flying. Not that many did. But still their voices comforted her, crackling onto her com as she watched the ships launch all around her. Her little fleet. Her hope, and the hope for the city.  _At least some would get away_ , she thought.  _They must_.

Tuor shot her a look. “You sure you can do this?”

Idril grimaced, placing her hands in the control gauntlets. She knew the ships weren’t designed for long-distance interplanetary travel, they were barely more powerful than the little near-planetary asteroid drillers that Maeglin’s fleet used. Her face twisted at  _that_  thought. “Yes” she said, firmly. She glanced at Eärendil, as the engines began to roar. “You need to be brave now, okay? There’ll be a… a bump, but then it’ll all be over and we’ll be - ”

But her words were cut off by a cry as the ship stalled and lurched, warning lights blinking. Idril righted herself, her arms bruised as she had twisted in her seat. She looked down; the Wall lay below, collapsing and warping, what was left of its reflective surface shimmering eerily in the light of the burning from within, in what remained of the escaping atmosphere. The little platform port wouldn’t last long before they fell back down to the planet’s surface, she knew. She glanced nervously at Tuor who was holding a wide-eyed Eärendil in his arms, then back at the display. “Console, what’s wrong?”

“Airlock not flight ready.”

“What? How can it be - ”

“Airlock must be clear of all passengers for take-off.”

“But… but it’s only the three of us! And we’re all here.”

“Airlock must be clear of all passengers for take-off.”

“ _But it is_  - ”

“Idril, she’s not gonna let us leave the launchpad this way. I’ll go check the airlock” interrupted Tuor, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, his voice soothing, calmer than she knew he felt. “Maybe the door’s gotten stuck. It can happen.”

She nodded gratefully. “Take Eärendil with you. When you’re done, strap him into the belts in the cargo bay below, and then strap yourself in too when you’re done. Then hold on.” She hesitated for a moment. “Just in case. This could be… a little bumpy.”

He nodded grimly, squeezing her arm for a moment, kissed her cheek and then disappeared.

Immediately, Idril pulled up the video screen. “Show me the feed to the airlock bay.”

The console bleeped obligingly and the display shimmered into glowing blue holographic life.

She could see Tuor, holding Eärendil by the hand, peering at the closed door with a frown on his face. She stared at the screen, frowning too even as she leaned into the control gauntlets.

Tuor was looking around, puzzled. He opened and closed the airlock’s inner door, testing it. “Alright, we should be good to go” he said into his com.

“Good. Well, get strapped in, both of you” said Idril, trying to start the engines once again. To her surprise they roared into life, a comforting and familiar mechanical growl, as if nothing had been wrong before.  

She was about to pull them into take off mode, when something on the video feed caught her eye.

Tuor had turned, was lifting Eärendil in his arms, talking to him. But then, out of nowhere a dark shape dropped catlike from the ceiling and rose up behind him, large in the camera’s view.

_The airlock. He must have been hiding within the airlock, between the inner and outer doors. That was why the ship threw up a warning._

“Tuor!” she screamed too late into the com. “Look out!”

But even as he turned, the shape - no, the  _figure_ , she realised - was on him, fighting, pulling Eärendil from his arms.

She heard the audio crackle as her husband’s com fell to the ground, then only muffled voices, before the ship lurched and something came smashing into the camera, the wall filling up her field of view.

She could neither see nor hear what was going on, and there was nothing she could do now anyway, not while piloting the ship…

There was a sudden shudder, as part of the platform itself collapsed, at the corner of her vision. Cursing, Idril realised she had no other choice. She must take off now, or not at all.

She radioed the other pilots. “All set. Get out while you still can. See you on the other side.” She slammed down the com and pulled the ship into flight.

“Hold on Tuor” she murmured. “Maeglin, just you wait until I get us out of this. I’ll deal with you then.”

——-

Tuor released the inner door with a hiss and peered into the airlock curiously, furrowing his brow when he saw that it was empty. He closed the inner door again, sealing it once more, and this time the status light blinked from red to green.

“Ready for take off.”

 _The bearings must have jammed the first time_ , he thought doubtfully, inspecting the inner door.

“Father” said Eärendil, squeezing his hand nervously. “What’s wrong? Is something broken on the ship?”

“No, son” said Tuor, shaking his head in some confusion. “No, everything seems… fine?” Still frowning, he called through to Idril up above. “Alright, we should be good to go.”

“Good. Well get strapped in, both of you” came Idril’s voice from the com.

He nodded. “Come on, little one” he said to Eärendil, lifting his son in his arms. “Let’s go and - ”

His voice was cut off in a huff of air, as something large and heavy hit his back.

“What - ” but before he could speak or recover from the shock, quick, strong hands were tearing Eärendil from his arms.

“Father!” wailed the child, falling to the ground in the corner.

Tuor twisted violently in his attacker’s grasp, struggling desperately. “Who - ” he managed to grunt out, but then he turned, and saw the face pressed close to his, twisted into a furious mask. “ _You_ ” he growled. “You traitor! Don’t touch me!”

“I don't… care about you” spat Maeglin, twisting Tuor’s arm painful behind his back and seizing him by the hair. “You're…  _nothing_. You’ll be dead soon, anyway.” He let out a cry of pain and anger as Tuor got the better of him, twisting out of the arm lock and hurling them both down to the ground, landing hard on the aluminium slats. Not missing a moment, Maeglin’s hand shot out, trying to grasp his throat, but Tuor was too quick for him, rolling aside and throwing all his weight into a punch, catching Maeglin’s jaw before he could turn his head away. The blow unbalanced him though, and they both rolled to the side as the ship jerked and shuddered through take-off, the floor tilting even as they fought with each other.

Tuor tried to drag himself up, but Maeglin was too quick and agile, grasping a bracket on the wall and and springing to his feet with frantic, blazing energy.

He dodged Tuor’s lunge and, to his horror, seized Eärendil roughly by the front of his jacket, dragging the boy to his feet.

Tuor rose, anger suddenly boiling up from within him at the sight of his son’s face, pale and silent with shock. “Get your filthy hands off my son, traitor” he snarled.

Maeglin laughed even as Tuor lunged at him once again. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you.” And with that he slammed the button to release the inner airlock door, thrusting Eärendil out into the space beyond. The doors closed but Maeglin thrust his foot in, so that Tuor could see a mere sliver of his son’s terrified face even as Maeglin still held him at arm’s length beyond the door.  

Tuor froze in sudden horror, eyes flicking to Maeglin’s other hand on the controls.  _Right there was the airlock release button, to close the inner door and open the outer, to depressurise… if Maeglin should take his foot away from the inner door, and then press that button, the airlock would blow, and Eärendil wasn’t even wearing a flightsuit…_

Maeglin’s mouth curled into a desperate, feral smile. There were tears on his cheeks, and blood on his lips and teeth from Tuor’s fist, but it was his eyes that were truly fearful to behold, hollow pits of pain. As Eärendil whimpered through the doors, Maeglin and Tuor’s eyes both flicked simultaneously to the com lying on the floor by Maeglin’s foot, where Tuor had dropped it as they had fallen.  _If he could just get to it first, he could radio Idril, and she could use the pilot’s central command to override the airlock controls…_

With a snarl, Maeglin ground the com into the metal floor with his boot heel, with a crunch of breaking electronics. “Don’t even  _think_  about it” he snarled.

“Father!” cried out Eärendil through the gap, as the inner doors tried to close on Maeglin’s foot which was jammed between them. The doors opened and closed and opened again, warning lights blinking. Tuor only hoped Idril could see the warning on the controls up above. “Make him stop, Father, he’s hurting!” cried out Eärendil. “I’m scared!”

“It’s okay” began Tuor, “it’s fine, listen to me, everything will be just - ”

He darted his hand out suddenly, trying to seize Maeglin’s hesitating hand on the controls, but again Maeglin was too quick for him, darting out and twisting Tuor’s fingers back with a blinding bolt of pain, until he heard them click.

“Yes, he’s right” said Maeglin, his breath coming hard now, his voice cracking. “Everything…” he grasped Tuor roughly by the collar and shoved him at the crack in the doors, Tuor’s shoulder colliding roughly with the metal, though the the doors were not wide open enough to allow him through to Eärendil. “Listen to your son.” Maeglin was practically sobbing now, through his sneers. “Everything will be alright, once you’re dead. She be free of your - ” he grunted, as Tuor grasped him hard by the sleeve, and they struggled together for a moment “ - your mortal  _weakness_ , and then she’ll be  _happy._ ”

Tuor’s hand throbbed with pain, but he let out a snarl and shoved Maeglin away from him violently, quickly parting the doors and half-pulling a scrambling, crying Eärendil back through, into the entry port. “If you think that, I almost pity you” he panted, clutching his shoulder, wondering if it was dislocated. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Or I  _would_  have, if you hadn’t threatened my son.”

With a sudden renewed rush of energy, he launched himself at Maeglin, sending them both sprawling bodily through the half-open doors, into the airlock. “Eärendil!” shouted Tuor. He hesitated for a mere moment, drawing in a sharp breath even as he pinned Maeglin to the floor within the airlock, steeling himself. “The button on the control panel, you see it? I want you to - ”

But he got now further, for at that moment the ship lurched once more, throwing Maeglin against the wall, bright blood blooming at his temple. In the moment that he lay there, dazed, Tuor leapt to his feet, throwing himself back through the doors and into the ship proper. He slammed the button to close the inner doors.

To his relief, there was nothing blocking them and they slid shut, his last view of Maeglin a pair of dark eyes widening in sudden horrified realisation.

Tuor slumped to lean against the wall, listening to the panicked scrabbling from within with some revulsion.

His eyes flicked to the airlock’s outer door release button.

“Inner seal complete. Airlock ready for evacuation” said the voice of the console.

_He is the reason for all of this. And he was going to do it to us…_

“Eärendil” he said slowly. “Go and put on your flight suit, you hear me? Then go to the cargo bay and strap yourself into a belt like your mother said, and hold on. I'll… I’ll follow right along.”

“But father” said Eärendil. “Will you be alright? You look like you’re hurt bad!”

Tuor sighed heavily. “I’ll be fine, son.”

After Eärendil had gone, he listened for a moment more to the eery silence, free of metallic scrabbling. Maeglin, it seemed, had stopped struggling.

His fingers lingered over the button for a moment, before he pressed it.

“Airlock evacuation sequence initiated. Airlock evacuation in ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four…”

_Forgive me._

“…three… two… one… depressurising.”

He slid down the wall, listening to the muffled mechanical hiss, feeling the vibration as the airlock blew out into space.

——–

They came to land on a little planetoid, barely more than a glorified asteroid, thought Idril. Her helmet visor made the world look strange; she had not been off-world in so long, so she had not had to wear one much.

She pulled her son into her arms, wordless, as Tuor told her what had happened, slowly, haltingly, as survivors rushed to set up emergency radiation shelters and gravitational field amplifiers, to build rudimentary medical bays to get help to the dying.

 _So few_ , she thought.

“You did the right thing” she insisted, gritting her teeth in anger and hatred as he told her what Maeglin did. “I… I would have done the same.”

Tuor squeezed her thickly gloved hand in his, clumsily. “I know.”

She leaned her head briefly against Tuor’s helmet, their visors clicking together. A heavy weariness of grief had descended on her, dragging her down with the weight of despair at the destruction that had passed, that she could barely begin to comprehend and process. She wanted nothing more than to be lay her brow against his, feel the scratchiness of his beard against her cheek as he held her close, the warmth of him.

“Princess…” a soldier with a golden flower badge on his sleeve hurried towards them, clumsy in his flight suit and the still semi-functional artificial gravity that had been set up within the little camp. “A message… Lord Glorfindel, he did not make it to this planet…” the man swallowed nervously. “They’re saying he saved us, my Princess. He gave us our chance.”

She sighed.  _Saved. Are we really saved? Will we ever be?_  There would be a time for grief, she knew, for Glorfindel and for all the others who had died to save them, or died for no reason other than because they refused to stand down and were in the way…  _for father_. She closed her eyes momentarily, then opened them again. “Thank you for telling me. Is that all?”

“No, Princess. There’s to be a council as soon as the camp is fully up. I was sent to fetch you. Both of you.”

“Very well. We will be there.”

The messenger bowed and departed hurriedly.

“We should go, I suppose” said Idril after a while.

Tuor sighed. They both looked down at Eärendil, who had fallen asleep in Idril’s arms. She lifted him as carefully as she could, trying not to wake him, but even as she did so he stirred. “Mother, what’s going on?” he asked sleepily. He touched his hardened glass visor curiously. “Why am I wearing my suit again? Are we going somewhere?”

Idril blinked. “Yes, my sweet” she said. “Yes, I suppose we are.”


End file.
